The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1887-05-06

The best Of them are apt to be self-connit-
ted paupers with babies Of their own The
others are fallen women just out of the lying
IN hospital and pauper women who have
gone to the hospital IN the same condition
It has been found that they treat the help
less little waits of the streets very unfairly,
nursing their own babies and starving the
others if they are not watched. But they
are watched and the best care the humane
paid nurses can exact for the little ones is
given to them. The great majority die and
lowed-looking pit in Il S and rows, foot to
head in lines and ON top of one another in
the other direction. The little collins are
numbered and by the records that are kept
any founding can be traced from where its
mother abandoned it to its coffin, but no
need for this was ever known. No mother
ever yet has called for the corpse of her little
one.
1t is not because of their treatment in the
city's hands that the homeless babies die.
1t is because of their exposure after their
mothers leave Them because their mothers
drug them, because they are born in misery
and poverty, because they are apt to have
been half starved. Once in while the pub
lie catch mother in the act of surrendering
her child to the cold world. That is felony
and the penalty is severe. Sometimes one
Of these mothers repents and seeks her babe.
II it is not dead it is returned to her. If it
lives three years it is sent to one of two insti-
tutions to be adopted by some one who APP
plies for boy or girl and gives good refer
ences. The two institutions are the Protestant
Home for the Friendless and the Roman
Catholic Institution of Mercy.
The New York Founding Asylum is
world-famous as the happiest and most adj
mirable haven that ever homeless baby
found its way to. 1t is SO famous that babies
have been brought to it from every State in
the Union, and even from Europe. People
believe that once baby is taken in there
it will be reared with a care almost approach
ing that of a mother in command of limit
less means, experience and love. How true
that is, l don't know, but | certainly never
saw happier, healthier. cleaner or brighter
little ones in my life than / found there
when ] called unheralded and was shown
through the huge and beautiful building.
Between the inner and the outer front
door of this place of charity is an ordinary
wicker basket or crib, swinging between two
uprights and curtained with pink and white
muslin. Ordinary it is, but only in appear
ance, for it is hardly question whether any
other receptacle ever held so many examples
of microscopic humanity as this. The babies
that have been left in it by desperate mothers
would populate what would be called acity
in the far West: There must have been
1900 to $4,000 foundlings in that crib by
this time. Two or three times night the
doorbell rings, one of the two dozen sisters
slips down and mother is allowed to enter
the vestibule. Often not word is spoken.
The sister looks on while the mother
puts her little one in the basket. If
the mother seems decent girl or cries Bit
terly at parting with her care the sister some
times urges her to try once again to care for
it herself. When the asylum was first
opened young woman, who was wild with
grief told sister that she could not go
home; even without the proof of her shame
her parents had cast her off. The sister
inxitpd hQr RI stow and for hor
child. That precedent has often been fol- |
lowed since, and now there are always many |
mothers learning laundry work, learning
sewing, cooking and whatever there is to do. |
Of course they are often women who have |
discarded virtue, and it has been found that |
ing them out to earn their living, proud of |
the work they have been taught to perform. |
The sisters say that it is surprising how |
many of these immoral women have never |
learned anything useful; when taught how |
TO work they often take to it eagerly.
The good mother superior at Mount st. |
Vincent founded this asylum in 1869, in
little dwelling, in the month of October. In |
one month thirteen babes were left at the |
door, and by Christmas the number had in
creased to 124. Now there are always
about 1000 on the lists of the asylum, 500 in
it and the rest kept out to nurse among
workingwomen at SO a month. At first it
seems like helping crime to keep basket |
like this one at the asylum always ready for
mothers to go to when they wish to abandon
their offspring. But a moments reflection
shows you that this is not so; that if
mother is so constituted or SO situated that
she can or must part with her baby, it is best
that the means be provided for her There
are women whom nothing can force to this
dread alternative. They may be obliged to
have their little ones cared for in the day
time at one of the many s'day-board-for-
babies" establishments in the city, but when
work is done and home is to be sought the
loyal matron always takes her darling to her
breast. JULIAN RALPH.